Small press reviews thread

[Fysh]

We've got threads for the weekly new releases and trades/OGNs so why not small press & indie comics? I'll get the ball rolling with a selection of stuff I've picked up in the last month or so. Sorted in alphabetical order, with links where possible:

Chloe Noonan Monster Hunter Colour Special by Marc Ellerby - 4/5

I like Marc Ellerby's work - his linework is appealing and he has a whimsy to his humour that I like. His Chloe Noonan stuff is better, I think, than his Ellerbisms material because it's better structure. In this issue Chloe faces her worst enemy yet - a 15s-and-over student night at the local nightclub. An excellent colour job really helps the art pop even more than usual, and despite it being about a decade since I was last stuck in a shitty student club night I still grimaced while laughing my arse off reading this.

More info at Chloe Noonan: Monster Hunter by Marc Ellerby.

Comix Reader #3 by various - 5/5

The third issue of Richard Cowdry's Comix Reader anthology is another great comic, printed on newsprint at tabloid newspaper size and with the awesome cover price of £1. It has a lovely cover by Eliott Baggott, and a great mix of pages from small press & indie creators. Cowdry's Fat Charlie Chaplin is great, with a sense of humour that fans of his Bedsit Diaries series will recognize. Elliot Baggott follows up his lovely cover with a great joke about Johannes Guthenberg, inventor of printed movable type. Maartje Schalkx has a minimalist page that works in an impressionist suggestive way. Tanya Meditzky & Tobias Tak provide a great two page comic about a walking tree who wants a makeover. Steve Tillotson of Banal Pig gives us a glorious "gradual reveal" page where each panel in an enormous grid reveals a bit more of a larger scene. Steve Ward's Invisual Arts is a gorgeous-looking darkly-comic page, and Lord Hurk's back cover comic "Lonely Bomb" is fantastic. And that's just 8 of the 20-odd pages in there. It's great. Check it out.

More info at The Comix Reader.

The Human Beings by Sofia Niazi - 3/5

A proper minicomic in size (ie around A6 page size) and printed up in a lovely fashion, this is one of those little comics that's all about execution. It's really more a storybook than a comic, really (one of those ones where you get a line of story and a picture per page) but it's done in such a great way, each page designed and presented as embroidery. The story is a simplistic "Back in the stone age, we were happier because we were IN TOUCH WITH NATURE" hippy waffling, but the presentation (including some very nice glossy paper and a good colour print job) makes up for it. Plus, you know, it was only £1.

More info at Sowfia.

Killjoy #1 by Robert Killjoy - 2.5/5

To a certain extent I should've known with this one (the cover carries the message "A comic for the discerning nostalgist"). It has a nicely-drawn and particularly nicely-coloured cover, and the artwork overall is uncomplicated but effective....unfortunately, the story is a bit boring and there's nothing to really hook you in or bring you back. Being an account of how the author went to scout camp as a child and a couple of minor anecdotes that happened there, without any wider context for them, it just sort of goes for a while and then stops. It's far from the worst auto-bio comic I've ever read, and it's not that it's actually bad as such (we're not in Ariel Schrag territory here, thank Christ)- it's just not particularly gripping material.

More info at pygmyking.blogspot.com.

The Lengths #1-4 (of 8) by Howard Hardiman - 4.5/5

I know reviewing four issues at once is a bit of a cheat, but since they're all part of a longer story it works. The overall story is about Eddie, an art student who ends up falling for a male escort and following him into the world of prostitution and beyond. It has a Maus-like conceit of using canine faces for all its protagonists, and a cute conceit for the inside front and bad covers that introduce the primary players. Hardiman's artwork progresses and becomes more confident with each issue, with greater depth of shading and confidence of line as the series progresses. It's all in service of the story and the characters, though. We quickly get a handle on all of them and their flaws, but seeing how events and their interactions progress is fascinating. I'm definitely on board for this for the rest of the series, and I heartily recommend this.

More info at The Lengths a gay comic by Howard Hardiman.

Papercutter #16 & 17 by various - 3/5 & 4/5

I've read one or two issues of Papercutter before, on loan from a friend, so when I found out that Gosh had some recent issues on the shelf I was happy to pick them up. I will admit to being slightly disappointed in issue 16 - the opening story was the longest and weakest of the lot. It was alright, but could have been done more effectively in about half the pagecount. The other one was a very nicely illustrated "cycle of life" piece that veered between heavy-handed and tongue-in-cheek farce tonally. Issue 17 was stronger, with a larger selection of shorter pieces amongst which such highlights as The Weeper (in which the protagonist rediscovers some Batman comics he drew as a child, featuring his very own villain, The Weeper), Scenes From A Fire (an autobio comic done right, about a household fire and its consequences) and Avo (a short piece about family with some lovely artwork).

More info at Tugboat Press.

The Peckham House for Invalids #1 by Howard Hardiman, Sarah Gordon and Julia Scheele - 4/5

Disabled teenage superheroines in 1906 Peckham may sound like an odd pitch, but it works rather well. The whole thing has the tone of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen crossed with The Umbrella Academy, but moving relatively quickly in its own direction. It's not clear yet exactly what the larger story will be, as the first issue is mainly establishing our main characters and setting, but it ought to be quite interesting to find out. If you like your superfolk with a bit of a twist, you might find a lot to like here.

More info at The Peckham Invalids.

Wu Wei by Mike Medaglia - 4/5

I've seen Mike's work before in Wet Ashes on a friend's recommendation and really enjoyed it (and also in Comix Reader #3), so when I found out he had something new out I figured I should take a look. I'm glad I did - there's a sort of laid-back undertone to these comics which is entirely appropriate, since meditation and Zen are core themes. I particularly like the first story about the professor visiting a Buddhist monk in a bamboo forest - simple details like the brush strokes used for the bamboo shoots and some clever layout design choices really strengthen it and make it all the more effective. The same design sensibilities underpin the other two stories here - a slice-of-life comic about a day in the author's life and an abstract comic that uses the contrast between black & white and the relative orientation of various shapes to create a sensation of time passing. The production values are high with this one, with slick glossy paper and a nice print job (not to mention good designs for front and back covers).

No linky, sadly

[Victorian Squid]

That's some nice work there, I'll post some of my faves from the local small press expo a few weeks ago when I get the time.

[GreyMouser]

please define small press as you would like, for this thread. just want to refrain from posting the wrong stuff in here, thnx

[Victorian Squid]

As I understand it, in the UK "small press" is basically equivalent to what are usually, but not always, called minicomics traditionally in the U.S.

British small press comics
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

British small press comics, once known as stripzines,[1] are comic books self-published by amateur cartoonists and comic book creators, usually in short print runs, in the UK. A "small press comic" is essentially a zine composed predominantly of comic strips. The term emerged in the early 1980s to distinguish them from zines about comics. Notable artists who have had their start in British small press comics include Eddie Campbell, Paul Grist, Rian Hughes, Jamie Hewlett, Philip Bond and Andi Watson.
Small press comics are traditionally sold by mail, using reviews and classified adverts, websites, email lists and word of mouth to reach an audience. There is usually one or more mail order service, commonly known as a "distro", operating in the UK. These will hold a wide range of titles and take a cut of the cover price. The two main active distros are Samu[2] and SmallZone.[3] They are also sold at conventions and festivals, with small groups of like-minded creators often sharing a table at a reduced rate. Specialist small press events include Caption in Oxford, and the UK Web and Mini Comix Thing in London. Creators will often make international links to these forms of distribution in other countries and vice versa.
Distribution into comic book stores via traditional distributors (such as Diamond) is rare. Stores will often stock titles by local creators though some, notably Gosh![4] in London and Page 45[5] in Nottingham, stock a wider range. In recent times small press titles have sold in larger bookstores Borders and Foyles in London.
The traditional format has been a photocopied and stapled booklet, usually at A5 size, similar to American minicomics, although other sizes are known. While some creators continue to produce publications in this style, emphasising the hand-made aspect and often decorating each copy by hand, in recent years the increasing availability of digital printing has made professional printing affordable for short-run publications. Some of the spirit of small press comics can now also be found in webcomics.

[GreyMouser]

so some real homemade stuff, right on. maybe ill dig out some old ones.

[Fysh]

Well, I tend to see small-press stuff as anything home-made and/or self-published, really. There's a certain extent of overlap between small-press & independent stuff to my mind - I'd consider Ryan Kelly's Funrama or Becky Cloonan's Wolves or The Mire to count for the purposes of this thread, for example.

[Victorian Squid]

Well, I tend to see small-press stuff as anything home-made and/or self-published, really. There's a certain extent of overlap between small-press & independent stuff to my mind - I'd consider Ryan Kelly's Funrama or Becky Cloonan's Wolves or The Mire to count for the purposes of this thread, for example.

Which is the more traditionally American definition of small press. My purpose in delineating the connotations "small press" and "minicomic" have had, and the differences between American and U.K. standards of terminology, wasn't to try and narrow the types of books reviewed in the thread--just to briefly gloss over the history of the way the words have been used.

[Emperor]

I think the key in that quote is:

"The traditional format has been a photocopied and stapled booklet, usually at A5 size, similar to American minicomics, although other sizes are known. "

As in, that is what it was back in the day*, if you look around the British small press offerings at a comics convention these days you'd be pushed to find much like that - they tend to come in A4, A5 or American comic book size with colour covers and good quality paper. I have a stack of them (and have contributed to quite a few) and the only ones that resemble that description are 5-10 years old. So I wouldn't really worry about that angle - I'd imagine the US and UK small press are pretty similar these days, with the main difference being we tend to use other paper sizes. The tricky bit is drawing a line between the small press and the independent publishers - but the latter, like SelfMadeHero, Classical Comics, Markosia, Renegade, Cinebooks and Strip/Print Media, will have larger print runs, a wider stable of titles and generally turn a profit.

* The article got an early boost by Pete Ashton, who is very knowledgeable in the field, but it is also a little outdated and doesn't really reflect the advances in printing that have allowed people to produce a comic of similar print quality to the larger publishers.

[GreyMouser]

"The traditional format has been a photocopied and stapled booklet, usually at A5 size, similar to American minicomics, although other sizes are known. "

thats what i was used to in the old days, and there is still a bunch of folks doing that out here. i used to make 1 sheets, digests and minis (4 way folded) at one time. several street kids and punks in my area have made homemade zines and comics that way for years.
im sure the small press industry has gone FAR beyond this by now, so i wonder what the limits and overlaps are.
damn cool stuff, maybe even truly cool.

thanks

[Fysh]

thats what i was used to in the old days, and there is still a bunch of folks doing that out here. i used to make 1 sheets, digests and minis (4 way folded) at one time. several street kids and punks in my area have made homemade zines and comics that way for years.
im sure the small press industry has gone FAR beyond this by now, so i wonder what the limits and overlaps are.
damn cool stuff, maybe even truly cool.

thanks

If you've got access to a computer and a scanner, you can do so much more these days. Free graphics software like the Gimp or Paint.NET will let you do everything you need to on the drawing and lettering side (though not without a bit of effort), you can use something like Scribus to do your layout work and create an easily-printed PDF of your comic. That's where the big difference kicks in. If you can afford Manga Studio or Photoshop (and know how to use them) you can get even more slick results.

In terms of printing, if you can afford a bit of up-front expenditure (of the order of $100 or less for an inkjet printer, a bit more if you can afford to upgrade to a laser printer) the cost per page to print your own is less than the costs of going to a copy shop.

(All this chatter reminds me that I should really make some time to start drawing comics again...)